Shakesville: climate change

Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts

Feeling the Heat

[Content Note: Climate crisis.]

This sobering headline is as blunt as the subject deserves: Climate Change Will Kill Us with Heat If Nothing Is Done to Fix It, Study Says.

Naturally, anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention to the increasingly urgent warnings from climate scientists isn't shocked by that headline, but if you're nonetheless horrified by it, you're certainly not alone. The findings of this latest study are dire.

The number of dangerously hot days per year will skyrocket this century if little or nothing is done about climate change, putting millions of Americans at risk.

Those are the findings released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists in their report, "Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days."

The group says climate change is already manifesting itself in the form of deadlier storms, rising sea levels, droughts, wildfires, and floods, but the heat extremes forecast in their analysis of the rest of the 21st Century shows an intensity of heat that will affect the daily lives of more Americans than ever before.

..."We must act decisively to cut heat-trapping emissions to defend ourselves against a gravely hot future," the group warns. "By cutting emissions quickly and deeply, we can slow global warming and limit the increase in the number of extremely hot days."

When the heat index is above 90, outdoor workers are more susceptible to heat-related illnesses. Over 100 degrees, children, the elderly, and pregnant women are at risk. Above 105, anyone could be at risk of heat-related illness or death from prolonged exposure, according to the study.

If no action is taken to address climate change, broad swaths of the United States will see extreme heat conditions measured in weeks or months rather than days by the middle of the century, the study found.

There is much more at the link.

Obviously, people who can't afford air conditioning and/or people with illnesses or disabilities that make them more vulnerable to heat, in addition to children and elderly people, will be at higher risk for heat-related death.

Which, I fear, is precisely the point.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 907

a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

In the face of international condemnation — but very little comment from his own party — Donald Trump returned to the offensive against four Democratic congresswoman he targeted with racial invective on Sunday.

True to provocative form, the president accused the Democrats of "spewing" "racist hatred" — precisely the offence of which he has been widely accused.

In a tweet early on Monday, the president wrote: "When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel, and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them [and] their horrible [and] disgusting actions!"

He added: "If Democrats want to unite around the foul language [and] racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular [and] unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I can tell you that they have made Israel feel abandoned by the U.S."

The tweets reflected others Trump sent late on Sunday amid the storm created by his initial demand that the unnamed congresswomen should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime[-]infested places from which they came."

It's quite honestly not even worth remarking upon that his party refuses to condemn him. They aren't merely silent; many of them are openly defending him.

Sen. Lindsey Graham declines to condemn racist Trump tweets, calls Democratic congresswomen “a bunch of communists” https://t.co/gv7Mew0gZD pic.twitter.com/BEG56z7mFg
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 15, 2019

Senator Lindsey Graham in particular has been eagerly defending Trump's nativist malice. Kevin Fitzpatrick at Vanity Fair: Lindsey Graham: "I Don't Care" If Migrants "Stay in These Facilities for 400 Days."

Speaking with Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network, Senator Lindsey Graham vehemently disagreed with humanitarian concerns raised by Vice President Mike Pence's recent tour of a migrant detention facility in Texas. "I don't care if they have to stay in these facilities for 400 days, we're not going to let those men go that I saw," said Graham. "It would be dangerous."

Graham was referring to now-viral footage of Pence's tour, which saw the vice president blithely overlooking a fenced room filled to capacity with migrants protesting unsanitary conditions. Pence subsequently claimed over Twitter that the men "were in a temporary holding area because Democrats in Congress have refused to fund additional bed space," and derided CNN for allegedly "ignoring the excellent care being provided to families and children" in a separate facility.

This is what both Graham and Pence are defending:

VP saw 384 men sleeping inside fences, on concrete w/no pillows or mats. They said they hadn’t showered in weeks, wanted toothbrushes, food. Stench was overwhelming. CBP said they were fed regularly, could brush daily & recently got access to shower (many hadn’t for 10-20 days.) pic.twitter.com/tHFZYxJF7C
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) July 12, 2019

That is an image of a concentration camp.

Garrett M. Graff at Politico: The Border Patrol Hits a Breaking Point. "The problems underlying CPB's almost theatrical failures trace all the way back to its creation amid the post-9/11 reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security and have been exacerbated by a longstanding failure of leadership that extends up to both Congress and the White House and has lasted through three administrations. Both the modern Border Patrol and its parent CBP have been plagued by poor leadership and management at all levels, and by recruiting challenges that have left them with a subpar, overstressed workforce and a long-running toxic culture." This is a must-read.

“New York City officials said Saturday night that ICE agents were spotted conducting “enforcement operations” in two neighborhoods but that no arrests were made after residents declined to answer their doors.” #KnowYourRights https://t.co/El7Ij24JCn
— David Leopold (@DavidLeopold) July 15, 2019

Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Files Regulation That Would All but End Asylum for Non-Mexican Migrants.

The Trump administration published an interim final rule on the federal register Monday further that effectively ends asylum protections for Central American migrants. Under the rule, migrants — including unaccompanied minors — who travel through Mexico without first applying for protection in a “safe third country” are ineligible for asylum in the United States.

The majority of people who claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border are from Central American countries in its Northern Triangle region, including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Migrants from these countries routinely flee gangs, political unrest, and domestic violence. Traveling by foot or bus through Mexico is the only viable way they can receive asylum protections in the United States.

"It would end asylum for Central Americans," Ur Jaddou, former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Buzzfeed News last month, when the rule was under consideration. It's not just Central Americans who will be impacted by this new rule, so too will the thousands of migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, and countries in Africa who apply for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Goddammit.

The ACLU plans to file a lawsuit to try to stop Trump's new asylum rule from taking effect.

"This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly."https://t.co/LazNr0lJma
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 15, 2019

Meanwhile, Trump is still thrashing over having been thwarted (for now) from including a nativist citizenship question on the census. Hans Nichols, Kayla Tausche, and Hallie Jackson at NBC News: Trump Weighs Ousting Commerce Chief Wilbur Ross After Census Defeat. "Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. ...[S]ome White House officials expect Ross to be the next Cabinet secretary to depart, possibly as soon as this summer, according to advisers and officials."

* * *

Unlike Ross, Trump is still keen on Mick Mulvaney, to our lasting misfortune. Seung Min Kim, Lisa Rein, Josh Dawsey, and Erica Werner at the Washington Post: 'His Own Fiefdom': Mulvaney Builds 'an Empire for the Right Wing' as Trump's Chief of Staff. "[Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is] a former tea party lawmaker who has built what one senior administration official called 'his own fiefdom' centered on pushing conservative policies — while mostly steering clear of the Trump-related pitfalls that tripped up his predecessors by employing a 'Let Trump be Trump' ethos. ...Mulvaney has focused much of his energy on creating a new White House power center revolving around the long-dormant Domestic Policy Council and encompassing broad swaths of the administration. One White House official described Mulvaney as 'building an empire for the right wing.'" Shiver.

[CN: War on agency; misogyny] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: Republicans Get Another Win in Their Fight to Gut Title X. "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled the Trump administration's domestic 'gag rule,' which bans federal family planning dollars from going to health-care providers who perform abortions or refer patients for abortion services, can take effect everywhere but the state of Maryland. The ruling jeopardizes comprehensive reproductive health-care access for nearly 4 million people. 'This is devastating news for the millions of people who rely on Title X for cancer screenings, HIV tests, affordable birth control, and other critical primary and preventive care,' Dr. Leana Wen, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's president and CEO, said in a statement following the ruling."

[CN: Gun violence] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Tougher Gun Laws Mean Fewer U.S. Kids Die, Study Shows. "A study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics shows that children who live in states with strict firearms laws are less likely to die from gun violence than those in states with more lax restrictions. The researchers found that the stricter the state's gun laws, the lower the risk of children dying." Unfortunately, the federal government and most state governments are currently in the stranglehold of the death cult known as the Republican Party.

Nicole Lee at Engadget: The Amazon Prime Day Strike Could Be a Turning Point for Workers' Rights. "Today, Amazon will start its fifth annual Prime Day, which has been expanded to 48 hours this year. Designed to enlist (and keep) Prime members, it is the company's biggest shopping event of the year — on the same level as Black Friday — with extensive discounts and deals across the entire site. At a time when Amazon would likely prefer that all its employees hunker down to meet increased demand, a group of warehouse workers in Shakopee, Minnesota are going on strike. It isn't the first time the workers in Shakopee have raised their concerns. But it will be the first major work stoppage event for Amazon in the U.S. and could be a harbinger of things to come."

I fully support Amazon workers' Prime Day strike. Their fight for safe and reliable jobs is another reminder that we must come together to hold big corporations accountable. https://t.co/ZkDDt9zeHv
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 15, 2019

[CN: Climate change; flooding; displacement] Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Water on Water on Water: Why Tropical Storm Barry Is Already Devastating Louisiana. "With half-a-foot of rain already unleashed on New Orleans, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, warning, 'No one should take this storm lightly.' As Barry moves inland, it's expected to impact other areas in Louisiana such as Baton Rouge and Shreveport, as well as cities in Alabama and Mississippi. But with the storm only expected to become a hurricane on Saturday, why is it already so destructive? It has a lot to do with climate change, and specifically, with just how wet the past year has been for the United States." That item is a couple of days old now, but water/flooding still remains the greatest threat.

[CN: Climate change; flooding; displacement; death] Staff at the BBC: Monsoon Floods Displace Millions in India. "More than three million people have been displaced across north and north-eastern India amid monsoon rain that has cost lives and destroyed homes. Storms and floods have ripped through areas of Nepal, Bangladesh, and India, killing more than 130 people. At least 67 people lost their lives in Nepal in torrential rains, police there said on Monday. Thirty people were reported missing while 38 were injured, Nepalese police added. Heavy rains also caused deaths in Bangladesh, including in overcrowded Rohingya refugee camps. More bad weather is expected in the coming days."

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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We Resist: Day 889

A woman whose unborn baby was killed in a 2018 Pleasant Grove shooting has now been indicted in the death.

Marshae Jones, a 27-year-old Birmingham woman, was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on a manslaughter charge. She was taken into custody on Wednesday.

Though Jones didn't fire the shots that killed her unborn baby girl, authorities say she initiated the dispute that led to the gunfire. Police initially charged 23-year-old Ebony Jemison with manslaughter, but the charge against Jemison was dismissed after the grand jury failed to indict her.

...[Jones] was five months pregnant and was shot in the stomach. The unborn baby did not survive the shooting.

"The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby," Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said at the time of the shooting.

...The 5-month fetus was "dependent on its mother to try to keep it from harm, and she shouldn't seek out unnecessary physical altercations," Reid added.

I don't even know where to begin. If we're criminalizing women's emotional behavior while they're pregnant, we are in deep shit.

Amanda Reyes, Executive Director of the Yellowhammer Fund, a member of the National Network of Abortion Funds which helps women access abortion services, said in the statement: "The state of Alabama has proven yet again that the moment a person becomes pregnant their sole responsibility is to produce a live, healthy baby and that it considers any action a pregnant person takes that might impede in that live birth to be a criminal act."

She further notes that this opens the door to women being charged for not getting adequate prenatal care — and, of course, many women don't because of our garbage policy of treating healthcare as a privilege rather than a right.

Women are more than incubators. Goddammit.

[CN: War on agency; class warfare] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: What's Next in the Continuing Mess of the Domestic 'Gag Rule' Fight.

Reproductive rights and health advocates on Monday filed an emergency petition to the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to reverse a ruling last week setting aside preliminary injunctions blocking the Trump administration's domestic "gag rule" from taking effect.

The request is advocates' latest attempt to prevent the administration from enforcing the rule, which bans federal family planning dollars from going to healthcare providers who perform abortions or refer patients for abortion services and was originally set to take effect on May 3. Last week, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Trump administration could begin enforcing the policy while the case makes its way through the courts.

On Friday, attorneys from the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a separate emergency request with a federal court in Maine to block the gag rule as well. The court has not yet ruled on that request. A separate injunction remains in place for Title X grantees in Maryland.

[CN: Sexual assault] Daniel Victor at the New York Times: Two Women Who Heard E. Jean Carroll's Account of Being Attacked by Trump Go Public. "Two women in whom E. Jean Carroll confided about having allegedly been sexually attacked by Donald Trump in the 1990s spoke publicly about it for the first time in an interview excerpted on the New York Times podcast 'The Daily,' describing the conflicting advice they gave their friend at the time. On Wednesday, Megan Twohey, a Times reporter, interviewed Ms. Carroll and the two women, Carol Martin and Lisa Birnbach, who had not been publicly identified until now. It was the first time since the alleged assault that the women had discussed it together."

So, not only has Carroll gone on the record with her rape allegation against a sitting president, but the two friends in whom she confided at the time are now going on the record. And still, it's barely getting any attention.

[CN: Rape culture] Alex Kaplan at MediaMatters: Here's How a Fringe Smear Targeting E. Jean Carroll Reached Donald Trump Jr. "After author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll reported that [Donald] Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., pushed a conspiracy theory that the claim was 'ripped-off a plot' from a 2012 episode of NBC procedural Law & Order. Before being amplified by Trump Jr., the conspiracy theory was spread by a Twitter account associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory and another account whose content has regularly been shared by 'seemingly-automated accounts.' It has also been pushed by the Daily Mail's political editor."

[CN: Nativism; abuse] Maria Sacchetti at the Washington Post: U.S. Asylum Officers Say Trump's 'Remain in Mexico' Policy Is Threatening Migrants' Lives, Ask Federal Court to End It. "U.S. asylum officers slammed [Donald] Trump's policy of forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in the United States, urging a federal appeals court Wednesday to block the administration from continuing the program. The officers, who are directed to implement the policy, said it is threatening migrants' lives and is 'fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.' ...The union said in court papers that the policy is compelling sworn officers to participate in the 'widespread violation' of international and federal law — 'something that they did not sign up to do when they decided to become asylum and refugee officers for the United States government.'"

[CN: Nativism] Franco Ordoñez at NPR: Trump Wants to Withdraw Deportation Protections for Families of Active Troops.

The Trump administration wants to scale back a program that protects undocumented family members of active-duty troops from being deported, according to attorneys familiar with those plans.

The attorneys are racing to submit applications for what is known as parole in place after hearing from the wives and loved ones of deployed soldiers who have been told that option is "being terminated."

The protections will only be available under rare circumstances, the lawyers said they've been told.

"It's going to create chaos in the military," said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney who represents recruits and veterans in deportation proceedings. "The troops can't concentrate on their military jobs when they're worried about their family members being deported."

I can't imagine anything that makes more abundantly clear that Trump's immigration policy isn't about "protecting citizens" but is just straight-up white supremacist, nativist malice.

Twitter is introducing a label to place over tweets from world leaders that are found to be in violation of its rules around abuse, harassment, and violent threats. Those tweets will still remain up, but they'll be placed behind a notice. https://t.co/b9KhKgpmFd
— Ryan Mac (@RMac18) June 27, 2019

As Kyle Griffin notes on Twitter, this is "a move with potentially stark implications for Trump's account." LOL indeed.

* * *

Peter Baker at the New York Times: Heading to G-20, Trump Once Again Assails America's Friends. "In the hours before and after leaving for an international summit meeting, Mr. Trump assailed Japan, Germany, and India. He complained that under existing treaty provisions, if the United States were attacked, Japan would only 'watch it on a Sony television.' He called Germany a security freeloader and chastised India for raising tariffs on American goods."

Seung Min Kim, Damian Paletta, and Simon Denyer at the Washington Post: Trump Arrives at Global Economic Summit with Full Agenda and List of Grievances. "'Well, I think I can say very easily that we've been very good to our allies, we work with our allies, we take care of our allies,' Trump, flanked by senior aides and Cabinet officials, said at the beginning of his dinner with [Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison]. 'We even help our allies militarily. So we do look at ourselves and we look at ourselves, I think, more positively than ever before, but we also look at our allies and I think Australia is a good example.'"

And when President Trump sits down with President Xi on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, all eyes will be on whether they can restart trade talks that collapsed amid a war of words in May. https://t.co/h3o3BPSoXy
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 27, 2019

Eliana Johnson Burgess Everett at Politico: Trump's Hawks Ramp Up Campaign to Shred Last Part of Iran Nuclear Deal. "Iran's expected breach on Thursday of the uranium stockpile limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal is reviving a fierce debate within the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill about just how hard Trump should go to undermine the agreement. Even though Trump pulled out from the deal struck by President Barack Obama, an important portion of the agreement was left intact that allows work on Iran's civil nuclear program and facilitates international projects to encourage its advancement. The State Department has issued waivers to allow those projects to continue and doing away with them would almost certainly blow up the deal entirely. That's precisely the goal that Trump administration hawks, led by national security adviser John Bolton, have been pursuing."

Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Trump's DC Hotel Charged Secret Service $200,000 in First Year of Presidency. "The Trump International Hotel in Washington, just five blocks from the White House, charged the Secret Service more than $200,000 in taxpayer money during the first year of Trump's presidency. Expense documents obtained by NBC News show that a total of $215,254 was spent by the agency at the property from September 2016 to February 2018. One bill came in at $33,638 for just two days of use. "

[CN: Climate change]

OK, so, turns out the ocean has warmed about 20% more than we previously thought… which has dire consequences for all life on our planet on land and in the water https://t.co/glPMbQV91D
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) June 27, 2019

Jon Henley and Sam Jones at the Guardian: Spain Fights Huge Forest Fire as European Heatwave Intensifies. "More than 500 firefighters and soldiers are working to bring a huge forest fire under control in north-eastern Spain as the early summer heatwave intensifies across Europe. The fire, in the Catalan province of Tarragona, has been fanned by strong winds and high temperatures and has so far burned across 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) of land. ...'We're facing a serious fire on a scale not seen for 20 years,' the region's interior minister, Miquel Buch, said in a tweet."

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 887

Iran leadership doesn't understand the words "nice" or "compassion," they never have. Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone...

...The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more...

...Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

No more people who aren't bellicose sadists who threaten "obliteration" of their enemies. To all decent Americans' grief and regret.

In related news... [Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Saagar Enjeti and Jordan Fabian at the Hill: Trump: I Do Not Need Congressional Approval to Strike Iran. "Trump told Hill.TV in an exclusive interview Monday that he does not need congressional approval to strike Iran. When asked if he believes he has the authority to initiate military action against Iran without first going to Congress, Trump said, 'I do.' ...The president disputed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) assertion that he would need congressional approval for any 'hostilities' against Iran. 'I disagree,' he said. 'Most people seem to disagree.'" The fuck they do. I'm sure his cadre of sycophants do. Outside that thicket of reprobates, however, most people believe the president is not a fucking dictator.

Did anyone imagine that Putin would stop with just interfering in our election once he got away with that sans consequence? Oh. [CN: Video may autoplay at link] Tom Embury-Dennis at the Independent: Russia Contradicts Trump Administration by Saying Downed U.S. Drone Was in Iranian Airspace. "[Secretary of Russia's Security Council Nikolai Patrushev] spoke to reporters after a three-way meeting with his Russian and Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem. He said Iran — an ally of Russia — had not briefed Moscow about the incident, but that the Russian Defense Ministry had concluded the drone entered Iranian airspace."

Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg: Trump Muses Privately About Ending Postwar Japan Defense Pact. "Donald Trump has recently mused to confidants about withdrawing from a longstanding defense treaty with Japan, according to three people familiar with the matter, in his latest complaint about what he sees as unfair U.S. security pacts. Trump regards the accord as too one-sided because it promises U.S. aid if Japan is ever attacked, but doesn't oblige Japan's military to come to America's defense, the people said. The treaty, signed more than 60 years ago, forms the foundation of the alliance between the countries that emerged from World War II."

So Trump "mused about it privately," and yet here we are reading about it! And of course we're all meant to understand it's because Trump is always pouting about unfair our treaties are, and yet, as Olga Lautman notes on Twitter: "Just what Putin wants! Trump gets all his foreign policy ideas from the Kremlin who wants weaker or no alliances." Huh.

Say, on that note... Steven Erlanger at the New York Times: Council of Europe Restores Russia's Voting Rights.

In a decision opposed by most former Soviet-bloc countries, the parliament of the Council of Europe voted on Tuesday to end Russia's suspension, which began with the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Those voting to restore Russia's full rights in the council, which is separate from the European Union, argued that if Russia left the organization — as it had threatened to do — it would deny Russian citizens the right to bring cases before the European Court of Human Rights, a part of the council.

Opponents argued that Europe was giving in to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's support for separatist warfare in eastern Ukraine — and just as important, starting a process of normalizing relations with Moscow.

Does that strategy — holding the safety of marginalized people hostage in order to extort concessions and avoid accountability or any consequences at all for large-scale abuses — sound familiar to anyone else? Because it should.

* * *

[CN: Nativism; child abuse]

As I said yesterday, "losing" children is part of the strategy. The Trump Regime has no effective method for tracking children as it is; moving them around will make reunifications even more difficult — and will make it easier for them to conceal the deaths of children. https://t.co/eR3uyr69FZ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 25, 2019

Nancy Cook at Politico: Trump Is Tiring of Mulvaney. "In recent weeks, Trump has been snapping at his acting chief of staff with some frequency, and expressing greater frustration with him than usual, according to four current and former senior administration officials. Trump has long said that he prefers the flexibility offered by temporary titles, but Mulvaney's ongoing 'acting' status underscores the uphill battle he faces as Trump's third chief of staff in less than two-and-a-half years. While Mulvaney is not in danger of losing his job any time soon, officials stressed, Trump's treatment of him still signals to aides the slow deterioration of their relationship has begun."

A Chilean billionaire bought a mansion in DC just before @POTUS's inauguration. While he was closing on it, Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump signed a deal to rent it. Then the billionaire got permission to plan a mine on environmentally delicate US land https://t.co/xpZCkKJTcp
— Emily Flitter (@FlitterOnFraud) June 25, 2019

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: Our Next Election Is Dangerously Vulnerable, a Top Democrat Warns.

[Donald] Trump is set to meet with Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 this week, and one big question is whether Trump will warn the Russian leader against launching another attack on our political system.

We can guess the answer to that — he won't, because he stands to benefit. But that should renew attention to the steps we could be taking to fortify our elections against outside interference, but aren't, largely because Trump doesn't want us to, and because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is blocking many such efforts.

The causes for worry are mounting.

...Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, has played a lead role in studying the threat of more election interference.

...The Plum Line: What do you fear most in elections to come?

Wyden: As of today, the election interference of 2020 by hostile foreign powers — and I'm not just talking about the Russians — is going to make 2016 look like small potatoes.

Shiver.

Paul LeBlanc at CNN: Warren Introduces New Election Security Plan. "Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday released a new election security and voter fraud protection plan aimed to 'secure our elections from all threats, foreign and domestic.' 'Our elections should be as secure as Fort Knox,' the senator from Massachusetts wrote in a Medium post outlining the multi-pronged plan. 'But instead, they're less secure than your Amazon account.'"

A great and necessary idea — which chief Democracy Killer Mitch McConnell will ensure goes absolutely nowhere. Sob.

* * *

[CN: Sexual violence; rape apologia] Cristina Cabrera at TPM: Trump Denies Carroll Sexual Assault Accusation by Claiming 'She's Not My Type'. "Donald Trump denied writer E. Jean Carroll's allegation of sexual assault by stating that 'she's not my type' on Monday. 'I'll say it with great respect: Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened,' Trump told the Hill. 'It never happened, okay?'" JFC he is such a foul specimen. I hate him mightily.

[CN: Toxic masculinity; entitlement; gun violence; child abuse] Ben Kesslen at NBC News: California Man Shoots 10-Month-Old Girl in Head After Her Mother Rejects Him, Police Say. "A 10-month-old girl is recovering in Fresno, California, after being shot in the head by a man who made unwanted sexual advances toward her mother. Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said Deziree Menagh, 18, brought her young daughter, Fayth Percy, to a social gathering Saturday night where Marcos Echartea, 23, made advances toward her. Echartea grabbed her hand, tried to pull Menagh into him, and told her to sit on his lap, police said. The two barely knew each other, having met for the first time a week earlier. Uncomfortable with Echartea's advances, Menagh left the party in a car with Fayth and a friend. ...Echartea fired three rounds into the driver's window, one hitting Fayth in the head."

[CN: War on agency] Erin Heger at Rewire.News: Texas GOP Outlaws Local Governments from Having 'Any Transaction' with Abortion Providers. "Senate Bill 22, signed into law this month by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), takes effect September 1. The legislation prohibits cities, counties, and local governments from conducting 'any transaction' with an abortion provider or its affiliates — including leases, sales, and donations of real estate, goods, and services. 'What these statewide leaders are saying is that local entities no longer have the capacity to steward their community resources in the way that they see fit,' Autumn Keiser, director of communications and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, told Rewire.News."

If you don't see the through-line between all three of the above stories, I don't even know what to tell you.

* * *

[CN: Climate crisis; class warfare] Damian Carrington at the Guardian: 'Climate Apartheid': UN Expert Says Human Rights May Not Survive. "The world is increasingly at risk of 'climate apartheid,' where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law."

This speaks to my Ark Theory, in which oligarchs are using the climate crisis as their own modern-day "Noah's Ark" to escape the threat of overpopulation.

EXCLUSIVE: After Stephen Moore's failed Fed bid, he's creating a crypto central bank https://t.co/tL6AvLeMYt

"I’m really excited about doing this,” Moore said. “I hope it makes me rich.”
— Dan Primack (@danprimack) June 25, 2019

Douglas MacMillan at the Washington Post: Data Brokers Are Selling Your Secrets: How States Are Trying to Stop Them. "A state law passed last year required all businesses that trade data on Vermont's residents to register publicly and share some basic information about how they operate. ...The experiment in Vermont is being closely watched at a time when regulators across the country are trying to address growing concerns over online privacy. A California law set to take effect at the beginning of next year will allow the state's residents to opt out of having their data sold. Maine passed a law this month barring Internet service providers, including AT&T and Verizon, from selling broadband customers' information. State legislatures in New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts are all considering measures to give residents more control over data."

One wee fly in the ointment... Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Federal Agencies Left Private Data Open to Cyberattacks for a Decade, Says Senate Report. "Multiple federal agencies kept up an outdated security system over the past decade that left Americans' personal information vulnerable to theft, according to a damning new Senate report out Tuesday. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found the failures came from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and the Social Security Administration." Terrific.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 886

The fuck. https://t.co/13j4SLmaFP
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 21, 2019

That is terrifying. Also terrifying is the fact that most people reacted to it with jokes, rather than treating it with the gravity it deserves.

Ravelry is taking this moment seriously. Good for them.

* * *

[CN: Sexual violence] At the Cut, E. Jean Carroll published an account of Donald Trump raping her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in the mid-nineties. It is a deeply harrowing read of a blatant rape. Carroll is at least the 22nd woman to accuse the U.S. president of sexual assault, and it has not received proportional or sustained coverage in the news.

At Media Matters for America, Katie Sullivan observes that, the day after Carroll's account was published, "several major newspapers failed to report the story on their front pages, even though it is horrific, detailed, and extremely similar to the accounts of numerous other women." Among the papers who did not include the story on their front pages: The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

[CN: video may autoplay at link] At the Huffington Post, Hayley Miller notes that, two days after Carroll's account was published, "the hosts of the most popular Sunday morning talk shows in the U.S. had the opportunity to ask their guests ― often a mix of high-profile Republicans and Democrats ― about Carroll's horrifying claim and whether to hold the president accountable. But the allegation went largely undiscussed by major TV networks on Sunday morning, clearing the path for yet another sexual assault allegation against the president to slip into the void. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC ― the networks that make up the 'big five' of Sunday morning talk shows ― boasted major political players in their lineups that included Vice President Mike Pence and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). And yet not a single one of them was asked about Carroll's allegation."

Jon Allsop at the Columbia Journalism Review deep-dives into the media failure:

As is often the case, the criticism that "the media" did "not cover" Carroll's accusation should not be taken literally. The story was generated by the cover of a major magazine and provoked a vocal reaction on Twitter; Carroll subsequently spoke to major networks, and will continue her interview round today as New York hits newsstands. The complaint, rather, is one of magnitude, and on such terms is entirely legitimate.

...Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton calculated that the story was not among the 164 articles featured on the Times's homepage; it appeared there later on, but the Times tagged it in its books section, and even there it was downplayed. As of this morning, the story is all but absent from the homepages of major outlets. Yes, it's three days old at this point. But, as MSNBC's Joy Reid said yesterday: "In any other universe, in any other presidency, in any other news cycle… [Carroll's allegations] would have been the lead story all week long."

...Whatever the reason, it's astonishing that Carroll's allegation isn't ubiquitous in our news media this morning. Its relative absence is doubly surprising when you consider that the #MeToo moment — with its brilliant reporting on Harvey Weinstein and so many other abusive men—has arguably been the biggest story of the Trump era not to centrally feature Trump. Somehow, Trump escaped accountability at the height of that moment. It looks like that's happening again.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

* * *

Patrick Wintour at the Guardian: U.S. Proposes Tanker Protection Force in Wake of Gulf Attacks.

The U.S. is to propose an international maritime Gulf protection force, its special envoy on Iran has said, as the Trump administration prepared to announce fresh economic sanctions on Tehran.

Brian Hook said he had been holding extensive talks with U.S. allies in the wake of the Gulf of Oman tanker attacks, when two vessels were damaged by explosions. He believed a global coalition to protect shipping was required.

"There have been too many attacks. We could have had an environmental disaster and extensive loss of life due to reckless Iranian provocations," he said.

Hook said the G20 summit this week in Japan would be a good forum for discussions.

So now Trump wants to use the attacks on tankers to build what I can only assume he wants to be a rival/replacement of NATO, but including all his friends like the Saudis. Cool.

R. Jeffrey Smith at the New York Times: Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable — and They're Starting a New Global Arms Race. Hypersonic missiles are "a revolutionary new type of weapon, one that would have the unprecedented ability to maneuver and then to strike almost any target in the world within a matter of minutes. Capable of traveling at more than 15 times the speed of sound, hypersonic missiles arrive at their targets in a blinding, destructive flash, before any sonic booms or other meaningful warning. So far, there are no surefire defenses. Fast, effective, precise, and unstoppable — these are rare but highly desired characteristics on the modern battlefield. And the missiles are being developed not only by the United States but also by China, Russia, and other countries."

[CN: Nativism; child abuse]

This doesn't necessarily solve the conditions problem — it's not like CBP has better-provisioned facilities just ready to go — but does moot (AFAICT) the use of the fact-finding trip that leaked last week in lawsuits against CBP. https://t.co/kzGKQUqvzb
— Dara Lind (@DLind) June 24, 2019

[CN: Nativism; death] Sheriff Eddie Guerra of Hidalgo County, Texas, tweeted last night: "Deputies are on scene by the river SE of the Anzalduas Park in Las Paloma Wildlife Management Area where Border Patrol agents located 4 deceased bodies. Bodies appear to be 2 infants, a toddler, and 20yoa female. Deputies are awaiting FBI agents who will be leading." He has posted no updates since.

I'm not certain if FBI agents are taking the lead on the case because the bodies were found on federal land or because there is the possibility of foul play or some other reason altogether, but I will note the unlikelihood, as is the wide conjecture, that the victims drowned in the river near which they were found and their bodies all washed up simultaneously in the same place.

There is no good reason for migrants and refugees to die in the desert. All the reasons are bad. But I truly hope they did not die by violence at the hand of someone amped up by nativist rhetoric, because that means it is far more likely that more people will die the same way.

On a related note... Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Vigilante Arrested for Impersonating U.S. Border Patrol Agent. "A member of a vigilante group known for stopping migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has been arrested for allegedly impersonating a U.S. Border Patrol agent, court documents show. ...Reuters reports Jim Benvie, spokesman for the so-called Guardian Patriots, was arrested on the separate impersonation charges Friday in Oklahoma. The Justice Department alleges that Benvie, 44, passed himself off as a Border Patrol agent in April. Earlier this year, the Guardian Patriots split from another armed border group, the United Constitutional Patriots."

[CN: Nativism] Carmen Heredia Rodriguez at Kaiser Health News: Non-English Speakers Face Health Setback If Trump Loosens Language Rules. "A federal regulation demands that certain health care organizations provide patients who have limited English skills a written notice of free translation services. But the Trump administration wants to ease those regulations and also no longer require that directions be given to patients on how they can report discrimination they experience. ...The government acknowledged in the proposal that the change would lead to fewer people with limited English skills accessing health care and fewer reports of discrimination [but said] the impact of doing away with these requirements would be 'negligible.'"

* * *

Helena Bottemiller Evich at Politico: Agriculture Department Buries Studies Showing Dangers of Climate Change.

The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department's acclaimed in-house scientists.

The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment — a potentially serious health concern for the 600 million people world-wide whose diet consists mostly of rice — to a finding that climate change could exacerbate allergy seasons to a warning to farmers about the reduction in quality of grasses important for raising cattle.

All of these studies were peer-reviewed by scientists and cleared through the non-partisan Agricultural Research Service, one of the world's leading sources of scientific information for farmers and consumers.

None of the studies were focused on the causes of global warming – an often politically charged issue. Rather, the research examined the wide-ranging effects of rising carbon dioxide, increasing temperatures, and volatile weather.

The administration, researchers said, appears to be trying to limit the circulation of evidence of climate change and avoid press coverage that may raise questions about the administration's stance on the issue.

"The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change," said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. "Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented super storms, droughts, wildfires, and heat waves."

Elana Schor at the AP: Medical Groups Warn Climate Change Is a 'Health Emergency'. "74 medical and public health groups aligned on Monday to push for a series of consensus commitments to combat climate change, bluntly defined by the organizations as 'a health emergency.' ...'The health, safety, and well-being of millions of people in the U.S. have already been harmed by human-caused climate change, and health risks in the future are dire without urgent action to fight climate change,' the medical and public health groups wrote in their climate agenda."

TAPPER: Do you think climate change is a threat?

MIKE PENCE: America has the cleanest air and water in the world

TAPPER: That's not true

PENCE: Ahh, but we're making progress on reducing carbon emissions pic.twitter.com/u5hUxFpE6P
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2019

The entire exchange is just fucking incredible.

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We Resist: Day 882

The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in "safe and sanitary" facilities.

All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities.

"You're really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn't a question of 'safe and sanitary conditions?'" U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department's Sarah Fabian Tuesday.

U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government's interpretation of the settlement agreement.

"Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you've got an aluminum foil blanket?" Fletcher asked Fabian. "I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary."

The panel has yet to issue its ruling, but it doesn't look good for the Trump Regime. (Thankfully.) Which, of course, is why Mitch McConnell is stacking the courts with unqualified hacks that will affirm their malice as quickly as he can.

On Twitter, former director of the Office of Government Ethics Walt Schaub notes: "The government attorney, Sarah Fabian, who doesn't think [that] children need soap or toothbrushes, is the same attorney who refused to work over a weekend to address the crisis: 'I have dog-sitting responsibilities that require me to go back to Colorado but I will be back Monday.'"

This is an entire administration of sociopathic wrecks.

[CN: Nativism] At the intersection of the Trump Regime's nativism and trade warring... Neha Dasgupta and Aditya Kalra at Reuters: U.S. Tells India It Is Mulling Caps on H-1B Visas to Deter Data Rules. "The United States has told India it is considering caps on H-1B work visas for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, widening the two countries' row over tariffs and trade. The plan to restrict the popular H-1B visa program, under which skilled foreign workers are brought to the United States each year, comes days ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to New Delhi. India, which has upset companies such as Mastercard and irked the U.S. government with stringent new rules on data storage, is the largest recipient of these temporary visas, most of them to workers at big Indian technology firms."

[CN: Nativism; child abuse; homophobia; Christian Supremacy] Scott Bixby at the Daily Beast: Lesbian Couple Barred from Fostering Migrant Kids. "Bryn Esplin and Fatma Marouf knew early into their marriage that they wanted a family. But when early attempts with in vitro fertilization were unsuccessful, the couple started exploring serving as foster parents, opening their home to child refugees held in increasingly draconian conditions by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ...When they approached a local child-welfare organization contracted by the federal government to help find homes for some of the thousands of migrant and refugee children in the department's care, however, Esplin and Marouf were told that they didn't qualify — not because they couldn't provide a loving home for a child fleeing oppression abroad, but because, as a same-sex couple, their lifestyle doesn't 'mirror the Holy Family.'" (In good news, they sued and won.)

[CN: War on agency] Alice Miranda Ollstein at Politico: Appeals Court Says Trump Family Planning Restrictions Can Take Effect. "A federal appeals court this morning said the Trump administration's family planning rules can take effect nationwide while several lawsuits play out, delivering a major blow to Planned Parenthood and states challenging the overhaul. ...A panel of three judges, all appointed by previous Republican presidents, said the administration will likely prevail in the legal battle over the Title X family planning program since the Supreme Court held up similar Reagan-era rules almost 30 years ago, though they were reversed by the Clinton administration."

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Justice Alito Just Wrote the Most Terrifying Sentence to Appear in a Supreme Court Opinion in Years. "[T]he fifth vote to maintain SORNA's basic structure came from Justice Samuel Alito. His opinion concurring in the result is just three paragraphs long, and it contains this portentous sentence: 'If a majority of this Court were willing to reconsider the approach we have taken for the past 84 years, I would support that effort.' ...Congress' power to delegate regulatory authority to agencies is a backbone of American law. ...Had Congress known that the Supreme Court would pull this rug out from under it, it may have written some of these laws differently. ...But Congress acted on the assumption that the Supreme Court would not someday be held by nihilist revolutionaries."

[CN: Christian Supremacy] Robert Barnes at the Washington Post: Supreme Court Rules That Maryland 'Peace Cross' Honoring Military Dead May Remain on Public Land. "The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a 40-foot cross erected as a tribute to war dead may continue to stand on public land in Maryland, rejecting arguments that it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. ...Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the main opinion and said history and tradition must be taken into account when judging modern objections to monuments on public land. 'The cross is undoubtedly a Christian symbol, but that fact should not blind us to everything else that the Bladensburg Cross has come to represent,' Alito wrote." WHUT.

Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Inquirer: Did Russian Hackers Make 2016 NC Voters Disappear? Why Won't We Stop This for 2020?

In the end, we'll never know how folks went home and didn't vote in North Carolina, a key swing state that Trump won by 173,000 votes — and that's neither the only mystery about what happened in Durham, nor the biggest. Just days before the 2016 voting, Greenhalgh and other activists had heard the first reports that Russian operatives had tried to hack into an election technology company called VR Systems. She wondered that day if VR Systems was Durham's vendor.

It was.

Incredibly, it is just now — 32 long months after North Carolina's Election Day snafus — that officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have finally launched a serious probe into the possibility that Russian hackers crashed the computers or altered data that caused those crushing lines. DHS investigators are launching a forensic analysis of those laptops that crashed in Durham County — an effort that North Carolina officials had requested a year and a half ago.

Even more incredible: We might never have gotten here were it not for the actions of a heroic whistleblower — Reality Winner, who leaked federal intelligence about the VR Systems hack when most key state officials knew nothing about it, and who has been prosecuted, imprisoned, and held incommunicado by the Justice Department for her efforts — and the diligence of special counsel Robert Mueller, who confirmed a successful malware plant by Russian agents.

Now here's the most incredible part: U.S. election systems could be every bit as vulnerable to outside monkey business in the 2020 presidential election, because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP lawmakers are refusing to vote on critical election security bills that would provide federal dollars and support to local election systems to upgrade cybersecurity, as well as requiring paper ballots and audits that would ensure the integrity of the vote.

Republicans are democracy killers. And the entire party, in failing to prevent foreign interference in future elections, is colluding with any foreign interlopers who decide to interfere.

This is a national security nightmare! Is everyone in this admin is a possible Russian intelligence target?! She is compromised. The RUSSIANS knew. We didn’t. https://t.co/r6AhadWyHP
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) June 19, 2019

Josh Kovensky at TPM: FBI Conducting Criminal Probe of Deutsche Bank Money Laundering Lapses. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has an active criminal probe into whether Deutsche Bank broke anti-money laundering laws, the New York Times reports. Agents have reportedly tried to establish contact with a former Deutsche Bank compliance employee who sounded the alarm about transactions made by Kushner Companies, the family business of [Donald] Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner. Those transactions purportedly involved money that was sent to Russian entities. The bank reportedly did not file suspicious activity reports with the Treasury Department, as would have been required by law."

Miranda Bryant at the Guardian: Ivanka Trump's 2020 Tweet Violated Hatch Act, Watchdog Says. "Ivanka Trump has been accused of violating the Hatch Act, which bans government workers from speaking out on political campaign issues, over a tweet she wrote before her father's 2020 presidential campaign launch. The influential Washington-based watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a complaint against Donald Trump's daughter, a senior presidential aide who works in the White House as an adviser, albeit unsalaried." It would be great if this mattered. It won't.

* * *

Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: U.S May Have to Spend over $400 Billion on Seawalls by 2040 to Protect Itself from Rising Seas. "A new report has predicted that the U.S. will have to spend $416bn on seawalls in the next 20 years in order to protect itself from rising seas. The report comes from the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI.) Florida is likely to face the highest bill of $76bn by 2040, according to the research, followed by Louisiana which has a projected bill of $38bn, then North Carolina which stands to pay $35bn. 'I don't think anybody's thought about the magnitude of this one small portion of overall adaptation costs and it's a huge number,' said Richard Wiles, executive director of the CCI. 'So the question is: Who's going to pay for that? Is it really going to be taxpayers? The current position of climate polluters is that they should pay nothing, and that's just not tenable.'" Build those walls.

[CN: Water insecurity; video may autoplay at link] Jessie Yeung and Swati Gupta at CNN: India Is Running Out of Water. "Millions of people are running out of usable water in the southern Indian city of Chennai, which is currently experiencing major droughts and a rapidly worsening water crisis. At least 550 people were arrested Wednesday in the city of Coimbatore for protesting with empty water containers in front of the municipal government's headquarters, accusing officials of negligence and mismanagement. Meanwhile, four reservoirs that supply Chennai, the state capital and India's sixth largest city, have run nearly dry."

Maram Ahmed at the World Economic Forum: How Climate Change Exacerbates the Refugee Crisis — and What Can Be Done About It. "Climate-induced displacement is on the rise. Last year, climate-related factors resulted in the displacement of around 16.1 million people. It is estimated that, by 2050, between 150 to 200 million people are at risk of being forced to leave their homes as a result of desertification, rising sea levels, and extreme weather conditions. ...It is the world's most vulnerable people who are made to bear the brunt of climate change, though they are the least responsible for causing it, and are ill-equipped to deal with the consequences. ...Climate change induced migration is adding a new layer of complexity to the area of gender, as women and girls are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change impacting education, maternal health, and gender-based violence."

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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We Resist: Day 881

Wow– April Ryan: “Mr. President, will you apologize for the Central Park 5?

Trump: “You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt ... we’ll leave it at that.” pic.twitter.com/Cm3pQZ1Dis
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) June 18, 2019

Donald Trump, taking questions from reporters: April.

April Ryan: Mr. President, will you apologize to the Central Park Five? They've been exonerated; there have been videos and movies shown about the case; and you came out with a full-page ad saying that they should die, that they [inaudible] the death penalty—

Trump: Why do you bring that question up now? It's an interesting time to bring it up.

Ryan: Because there are movies out now—

Trump: You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein and if you look at some of the prosecutors, they think that the city should never have settled that case. So, we'll leave it at that.

What a reprehensible specimen he is.

[CN: White supremacy] Speaking of reprehensible specimens... Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: Mitch McConnell Says America Made Up for Slavery by Electing Barack Obama.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) scoffed at the idea of reparations during his weekly press conference Tuesday, saying that slavery was part of America's distant past, and pointing as evidence to the election of former President Barack Obama — someone McConnell did his absolute utmost to thwart.

"I don't think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea," McConnell said. "We've tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We elected an African American president."

"I think we're always a work in progress in this country, but no one currently alive was responsible for [slavery] and I don't think we should be trying to figure out how to compensate for it," McConnell added. "No, I don't think reparations are a good idea."

Happy fucking Juneteenth, everyone!

[CN: Homophobia; anti-choicery] Jennifer Bendery at the Huffington Post: Senate Advances Trump Court Pick Opposed by Pretty Much Every LGBTQ Rights Group Ever. "The Senate voted Tuesday to move forward with confirming Matthew Kacsmaryk to be a lifetime federal judge, despite strong protests from Democrats ― and one Republican ― over his record of opposition to LGBTQ rights and abortion rights. The Senate voted 52-44 on a procedural step to advance Kacsmaryk's nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Every Democrat present voted no. Every Republican but one, Susan Collins (Maine), voted yes." Another fine piece of Mitch McConnell's handiwork.

Katharine Gorka, a political appointee at the Department of Homeland Security who is married to Sebastian Gorka, will be the new press secretary at Customs and Border Protection, according to acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders. https://t.co/p8U5SU1zpZ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 18, 2019

Donald Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, says that "the country is 'too complex now' for polls to be reliable." As my pal Leah McElrath notes on Twitter, this is all part of the Trump campaign's game plan to create false narratives that explain a reelection victory no matter how unlikely it may seem: "Parscale is not making excuses. He is laying foundation to provide cover for some kind of dirty tricks by Trump campaign that could result in inexplicable election results. Again. We have to have a candidate who can inspire turnout to OVERWHELM whatever tricks they're planning."

See also.

Relatedly, I noted on Twitter this morning: "A friend messaged me: 'OMG Morning Joe is wall-to-wall clips of Trump's heinous kickoff rally from last night. Free advertising.' Joe has set the example of how to appear as though you're against Trump while actually protecting and empowering him. Keep your eyes peeled for this." We're going to see a lot of it, as part of the 2020 campaign and in general as he pushes his authoritarian takeover.

* * *

Missy Ryan, Greg Jaffe, and John Hudson at the Washington Post: Pompeo Warns Iran About Trigger for U.S. Military Action as Some in Administration Question Aggressive Policy. "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has privately delivered warnings intended for Iranian leaders that any attack by Tehran or its proxies resulting in the death of even one American service member will generate a military counterattack, U.S. officials said. The potential for a significant military response to even an isolated event has fueled a broader internal debate among top Trump officials about whether the administration's policy exceeds [Donald] Trump's specific goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, the officials said." No fucking doy it does.

Maxwell Tani, Betsy Woodruff, and Asawin Suebsaeng at the Daily Beast: Tucker Carlson Is Privately Advising Trump on Iran. "In the upper echelons of the Trump administration, hawkish voices on Iran predominate — most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. But as tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over the last few weeks, there's been another, far different voice in the president's ear: that of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. A source familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against taking military action against Iran. And a senior administration official said that during the president's recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more 'hawkish members' of his administration." Terrific. But what does Sean Hannity advise?

[CN: War; violence; displacement] Jamey Keaton at the AP: UN: Nearly 71 Million Now Displaced by War, Violence at Home. "A record 71 million people have been displaced worldwide by war, persecution and other violence, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday, an increase of more than 2 million from a year earlier — and an overall total that would amount to the world's 20th most populous country." My god. And meanwhile, the U.S. president is running a campaign of stochastic terrorism against refugees and breaking international law to deny them the opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.

[CN: Murder] In other news from the United Nations... Nick Hopkins and Stephanie Kirchgaessner at the Guardian: UN: 'Credible Evidence' Saudi Crown Prince Liable for Khashoggi Killing.

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated over the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi because there is "credible evidence" that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing, according to a damning and forensic UN report.

In an excoriating 100-page analysis published on Wednesday of what happened to Khashoggi last October, Agnes Callamard, the UN's special rapporteur, says the death of the journalist was "an international crime."

"It is the conclusion of the special rapporteur that Mr Khashoggi has been the victim of a deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible under international human rights law," she says.

There is much more at the link.

"Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the outgoing White House press secretary, is seriously considering running for governor of Arkansas, according to three people who have spoken to her in recent days." I'm sorry, Arkansas. https://t.co/04ZsWZdxZK
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 19, 2019

Emily Holden at the Guardian: Trump Ditches Sole Climate Rule That Aimed to Reduce Coal Plant Pollution. "Donald Trump's administration is finalizing plans to roll back the US government's only direct efforts to curb coal-fired power plant pollution that is heating the planet. Trump's Environmental Protection Agency will replace an Obama-era climate change rule with a regulation that experts warn could help some of America's oldest and dirtiest coal plants to keep running." Swell.

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We Resist: Day 880

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Today in Misogyny. And Every Day. and Trump Announces Massive Sweep of Undocumented Immigrants and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...

[Content Note: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed: USCIS Director Appears to Warn Asylum Officers in an Email to "Do Our Part". "The newly appointed leader of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, sent an email to staffers Tuesday in which he appeared to push asylum officers to stop allowing some migrants seeking refuge in the country passage at an initial screening at the border. 'Under our abused immigration system if an alien comes to the United States and claims a fear of return the alien is entitled to a credible fear screening by USCIS and a hearing by an immigration judge,' Cuccinelli wrote to USCIS staffers. ...He told staffers that USCIS needed to do 'our part to help stem the crisis and better secure the homeland.'" The homeland. JFC.

Faith Karimi at CNN: Body of a 6-Year-Old Girl from India Is Found in the Arizona Desert. "The body of a 6-year-old girl believed to be from India was found in a remote desert area in Arizona this week, officials said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the girl was trying to cross into the United States with a group of people from her country. Her body was discovered 17 miles west of Lukeville, just over the U.S.-Mexico border. The group was trying to get into the U.S. after human smugglers dropped them off near the Mexico border, the agency said in a statement Thursday. Temperatures in the rugged wilderness where agents found her remains Wednesday hovered around 108 degrees."

Deaths in the desert are going to become more commonplace as the Trump Regime escalates its violation of international law by refusing to allow refugees to seek asylum at the border. That will inevitably force more people to try to cross the border illegally in search of safety.

https://t.co/MCeLNBrf6t
— Adam Serwer🍝 (@AdamSerwer) June 18, 2019

(If you don't know why that last item was posted in this section, this is why.)

* * *

Devan Cole at CNN: Trump Downplays Tanker Attacks in Contrast to His National Security Team. "Donald Trump, in contrast to statements by his own top aides, downplayed recent attacks on two fuel tankers in the Gulf of Oman that his administration has blamed on Iran, calling them 'very minor.' The disconnect between Trump's comments in an interview with Time magazine — in which he also warned that he would 'certainly' go to war with Iran were the country to develop nuclear weapons — and recent statements by national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo come at a time of escalating military posturing between the two countries and a heightened risk of confrontation."

Eliana Johnson at Politico: Trump Prepares to Bypass Congress to Take on Iran. "The Trump administration and its domestic political allies are laying the groundwork for a possible confrontation with Iran without the explicit consent of Congress — a public relations campaign that was already well underway before top officials accused the Islamic Republic of attacking a pair of oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman. Over the past few months, senior Trump aides have made the case in public and private that the administration already has the legal authority to take military action against Iran, citing a law nearly two decades old that was originally intended to authorize the war in Afghanistan."

Kate Riga at TPM: Pentagon Sending 1,000 More Troops to Middle East as Iran Tensions Escalate. "Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced Monday that the Pentagon is dispatching 1,000 more troops to the Middle East in the wake of the blown-up oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman."

They're ramping up for war as fast as they can. Meanwhile...

Exclusive: Pompeo blocks inclusion of Saudi Arabia on a U.S. list of countries that recruit child soldiers https://t.co/VTngJlSfur pic.twitter.com/P44V7MBloY
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 18, 2019

* * *

[CN: Gun violence; white supremacy; misogyny; death] Kelly Weill and Justin Glawe at the Daily Beast: Dallas Federal Building Shooter Posted Far-Right Memes About Nazis and Confederacy.

A Texas man accused of opening fire outside a Dallas courthouse uploaded right-wing memes to Facebook, including memes about Nazism and the Confederacy.

Authorities said Brian Clyde, 22, attacked the Earle Cabell federal courthouse Monday morning before law enforcement killed him. No one else was reported injured. A Dallas Morning News photograph of Clyde shows him holding a semi-automatic rifle and wearing a belt full of ammunition. He appears to have uploaded to his Facebook page a picture of similar magazines on Saturday. Elsewhere on the page, he shared memes, some of which suggested racist or misogynist views.

...Last week, Clyde uploaded a Facebook video suggesting plans with a gun.

"I don't know how much longer I have, but a storm is coming. However, I'm not without defense," he said in the brief video, pulling out a rifle. "I'm fuckin' ready. Let's do it."

On Saturday, he uploaded a picture of 10 gun magazines. On Sunday, he uploaded a picture of a sword with the caption "A modern gladius to defend the modern Republic."

Clyde served in the Army from 2015 to 2017, though details of his discharge were not available.

[CN: Anti-semitism; violence] Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: California Man Arrested for Allegedly Plotting to Kill Jews Walks Free After Posting Bail. "A California man who allegedly wanted to carry out a mass shooting of Jews and police officers has been released from custody after he posted $125,000 bail over the weekend. [Redacted], 23, was taken into custody last week after a joint investigation by the FBI and police in Concord, on the outskirts of San Francisco. ...When police searched his home, they allegedly discovered a homemade AR-15 rifle, 13 magazines, a sword, a hunting knife, camouflaged clothing, books about the Hitler youth and Nazi life, as well as additional pistol ammunition. ...In a statement on Monday evening, the Concord Police did not offer any updates as to [redacted]'s bail conditions but noted that they were working to 'keep those threatened apprised of any developments' and urged the public to be vigilant." Oh.

[CN: Gun violence; domestic violence; death]

A Texas father shot his daughter six times, including twice in the head, just feet from her 13-month-old after an argument over where to place a baby gate. America is the only high-income country where guns make every day arguments deadly. #txlege

https://t.co/jBrffStXyC
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) June 18, 2019

* * *

[CN: Sexual harassment] Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast: 'This Isn't a Game': Four Women Sue Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill for Sexual Harassment. "Indiana State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon hasn't spoken to her state's attorney general, Curtis Hill, since the night he allegedly grabbed her ass. 'I want him to know how profoundly he's affected all of our lives,' Reardon, a Democrat, told The Daily Beast through tears on Monday. 'This isn't a game.' And so she is suing. Reardon and three other named statehouse employees filed a new federal lawsuit against Hill on Tuesday morning. The 11-count complaint against Hill and the state of Indiana alleges sexual harassment, retaliation, gender discrimination, battery, defamation, and invasion of privacy, according to a draft viewed Monday evening by The Daily Beast."

[CN: Domestic violence] Staff at USA Today: Read the Full Statement from Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan About a 2010 Domestic Case. "Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan released a written statement Monday night, addressing a violent domestic dispute from nine years ago with his then-wife. The 2010 incident is part of an FBI background investigation ahead of his possible confirmation hearing to be [Donald] Trump's permanent defense chief." Shanahan asserts: "I never laid a hand on my then-wife and cooperated fully in a thorough law enforcement investigation that resulted in her being charged with assault against me — charges which I had dropped in the interest of my family."

[CN: Domestic violence and sexual abuse] Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast: Eight Women Accuse Hollywood Filmmaker Max Landis of Emotional and Sexual Abuse: 'We're Not People to Him'. "As for secondhand allegations, there were too many to count. 'There's too many voices to ignore,' [actress Anna Akana] insisted. 'And I felt the need to be vocal because Max is intimidating and he's scary. And I've seen, being in that friend group, one of the most frustrating things is that he would lord his power and his money over people and intimidate them into friendship, or into forgiveness.'"

* * *

Kari Paul at the Guardian: Libra: Facebook Launches Cryptocurrency in Bid to Shake Up Global Finance. "Facebook has announced a digital currency called Libra that will allow its billions of users to make financial transactions across the globe, in a move that could potentially shake up the world's banking system. Libra is being touted as a means to connect people who do not have access to traditional banking platforms. With close to 2.4 billion people using Facebook each month, Libra could be a financial game changer, but will face close scrutiny as Facebook continues to reel from a series of privacy scandals."

Let me offer some unsolicited advice: Don't freely offer your financial data to a company who already abuses your personal data for their own profit.

Also: Fuck Facebook. Their pretense that this will help poor people is disgusting. "Disrupting" traditional finance models with no other objective than their own profit will ultimately harm financially vulnerable people the most.

[CN: Class warfare; food insecurity] Aviva Aron-Dine, Matt Broaddus, Zoë Neuberger, and Arloc Sherman at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Administration's Poverty Line Proposal Would Cut Health, Food Assistance for Millions over Time. "The Trump Administration is considering a change to the federal poverty line that would ultimately cause millions of people to lose eligibility for, or receive less help from, health, food assistance, and other programs that help them meet basic needs. ...While [the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)'s] notice does not discuss how the proposal would affect low-income families, the Census poverty thresholds are the basis for Department of Health and Human Services poverty guidelines, which determine who can get help from Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), and many other federal programs. The proposed change would lower the income-eligibility cutoffs for all of these programs, cutting or eliminating assistance for some individuals and families."

[CN: Poverty] Morgan Lee and AP Staff at the Washington Post: Childhood Poverty Persists in Fast-Growing Southwest. "The number of children living in poverty has swelled over the past three decades in fast-growing, ethnically diverse states such as Texas, Arizona, and Nevada as the nation's population center shifts south and west, a report Monday on childhood well-being shows. The annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 18% of the nation's children live in poverty, down from the Great Recession. But the same advances weren't seen in the Southwest, where many children are Native Americans, Latinx, and immigrants who have long faced disadvantages. 'The nation's racial inequities remain deep, systemic, and stubbornly persistent,' said the annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation."

And finally... Reuters Staff at the Guardian: Scientists Shocked by Arctic Permafrost Thawing 70 Years Sooner Than Predicted. "Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared. A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia. 'What we saw was amazing,' Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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